by Aaron Crash
Table of Contents
Summary
Black Forge Books Mailing List
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Books, Mailing List, and Reviews
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Patreon
Books by Black Forge
Books by Shadow Alley Press
GameLit, Harem, and Cultivation on Facebook
LitRPG on Facebook
Even More LitRPG on Facebook
Copyright
About the Author
Summary
IF YOU COULD STOP TIME, what would you do?
Jack Masterson wanted to be a cop like his dad—what he got instead was kicked off the force for doing the right thing. Sometimes fate can be cruel. Now Jack works a crappy job as a bank security guard. But when a bank robber unloads a shotgun in his face, Jack raises his hand...and stops time.
In an instant, he’s gone from rent-a-cop to Time Knight. As the sixth son of a sixth son, Jack’s drawn the attention of a sultry succubus and a horny angel, and now he’s got both heaven and hell talking dirty in his ear. It’s high time for Jack to get laid and get paid, but when his old crush gets kidnapped by a monster that feeds on people’s lifespans, Jack’s moral compass can point him only one way—straight to the gates of hell to stop a shift in the Time War and save the day.
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Chapter One
JACK MASTERSON STOOD at the security station, master of all he surveyed. Having five dead brothers had given him a certain perspective. He didn’t take shit from anyone, and that included the Plum Creek branch’s turkey-necked manager, who was in his office, glancing nervously out onto the floor, or the sweaty guy who’d just walked in and stood there awkwardly.
Jack knew the sweaty guy was going to be a problem, but you couldn’t just pistol-whip someone who looked suspicious and sweaty. You watched them. Then, if or when they lost their shit, you dealt with them quickly and efficiently before people started whipping out their phones.
At the bank, people trusted Jack, though most everyone knew him as the asshole with a heart of gold. You needed an asshole sometimes.
Jack wasn’t actually a bank employee. He worked for Vigilance Incorporated, a security company that had contracts with any number of banks, financial institutions, and whoever else needed a guy with a gun. Jack wore the dumb black-and-blue uniform, which included black shoes he spit-shined himself. He’d wanted to be more than a glorified mall cop, but sometimes a few bad minutes could change things forever. In the end, life didn’t promise you a damn thing. Jack knew that—he was fine with that—and now he was making do. Staring down thirty, he knew it was time to move on from Vigilance Incorporated and either get into cybersecurity, where the money was, or just say fuck it and join his buddy working for Securitas International, which would mean a move to Europe probably, and then lots of travel after that.
Jack wasn’t sure he’d get that job at Securitas since he didn’t have very good personal skills. One of Jack’s dead brothers—one of many—had told him you had to go along to get along. Andy had that ability. Jack didn’t. Andy was dead. Jack wasn’t. And Jack knew however much life could fuck you, life was better than death, full stop. Death was the big quiet. Death was forever.
And Jack was going to do everything he could to avoid that big quiet.
The sweaty guy wasn’t right in the head, that was obvious, but Jack scanned the other customers for accomplices. He wanted to make sure this wasn’t some kind of ill-considered heist, because the security guard was always the first to get shot. But it was mostly old people who still banked. The thing about banking and the younger generation? They just used their phones. For Jack it was easy—most of his paycheck went to his mom. That was a whole other story.
Sweaty guy went up to the teller. It was Annie, dammit. Annie Blackburn was girl-next-door gorgeous, with soft brown hair, gentle brown eyes, a nice smile—a plain girl who liked to smile and was sweet. She might be a little thick around the hips, but Jack didn’t mind. He liked women shapely. Annie had just gotten out of a near marriage, and Jack had been talking to her, trying not to be the asshole he was, to see if she was ready to start dating again. From all accounts, Annie was still in the grieving period. Jack didn’t have all the details, only that she’d been wearing an engagement ring and now she wasn’t.
Annie threw Jack a nervous look as sweaty guy stopped in front of her.
Jack unclipped his holster strap so he had access to his Beretta 92FS 9mm and started walking over real casual-like. The future perpetrator—that was how Jack was thinking of him, anyway—was wearing an old army coat over a greasy black T-shirt that matched his black jeans and black boots. His long, stringy hair was damp from his sweat, and his beard was rough and ragged. This guy might be just a homeless crazy, or he might be dangerous. Why was he sweating?
Walking up to Annie’s station, Jack nodded.
Annie grinned, relief on her face. “Hi, Jack! This is Hugo Mundi. He was asking about the ghost.”
“There’s no fucking ghost. Are you okay?”
Annie nodded. “Yeah. It’s just strange. Don’t you think?” Her eyes were pleading with him to do something.
Hugo squinted. “The security guard. Jack Masterson. There’s a ghost here. You’ve heard the weeping. My mother worked here. Evelyn Mundi. She’s gone. Rocky Mountain Bank has been here since the ’70s. Annie says there’s a ghost.”
Jack relaxed a little. The guy seemed less like a bank robber and more like a lost soul talking about his mother. Poor guy. But there was a line of customers waiting. The other tellers—Francine, Phillip, and Felicity—were all working hard down the way. Annie was at the end near Kyle’s office. “Mr. Mundi—”
The guy lost it. “Hugo! I’m Hugo! Can you tell me about the ghost? I feel like she might be here still. It’s crazy, I know it’s crazy, but I had a dream, and heaven was loud. And hell was hot under my feet. Horns. Horns. Horns. The horns of devils. My mother worked here. Her ghost called to me. She’s here.”
Hugo’s hand went into the pocket of his army jacket, grabbing something there, and Jack’s adrenal system went right to fucking eleven. He grabbed the guy’s arm at the wrist and elbow and stopped him from pulling out whatever was in his pocket. “Let’s take this outside, sir.”
Hugo’s eyes were wide. That one hand was
in his pocket, possibly around a weapon. It didn’t look like a gun, but stabbed to death was just as bad as shot. He was breathing hard. Jack didn’t want to beat his ass, not if the guy was just a heartbroken idiot who’d gone off his meds, but if he struggled, Jack was going to fuck his shit up. He addressed Annie in a firm voice. “Call Kyle. He can cover your station. Then me, you, and Mr. Hugo—”
“Just Hugo,” Sweaty said.
Jack took it in stride. “We’ll go outside and talk with Hugo about the ghost.”
Annie picked up her phone, and Kyle came out in a suit too big for him, a pencil-neck with a bad complexion at forty. Kyle wasn’t happy, but he took over for Annie, and Jack got Hugo Mundi out the door and onto the sidewalk before letting him go.
Rocky Mountain Bank was up on Viewtop Mountain, along with the rest of the main street of Plum Creek, a town not exactly in the Denver suburbs but still close enough to the big city to get a few homeless guys coming down. It was a little bedroom community, a little ranching, a little agriculture, a little mountain town. In Jack’s mind, Plum Creek was the perfect mix of every town in Colorado, and that included Denver.
The RMB and the Big Boy Café fronted the shopping center. Back across the parking lot were a King Soopers, a Subway, a Tamale Kitchen, and Jack’s gym.
Hugo had stopped breathing so hard. Being outside made him feel better. He still kept his hand in his pocket, though.
Two guys were talking down by the Big Boy Café, which probably had the best breakfast on the Front Range. Those two guys were leaning in close and glancing at Jack, and he didn’t like their looks either. But one problem at a time.
“Are you going to tell me about the ghost now?” Hugo asked.
Annie frowned but remained sweet. Damn, she was sweet, and kind, and she smelled how girls should smell—a perfume that wasn’t trying too hard, a little fabric softener, and just herself.
“There’s not much to tell, Hugo,” Annie said. “All we really hear is crying sometimes, at night, in the far corner. It’s faint. It might not be anything.”
Hugo gulped. “She worked there. My dad said she said that there was something watching her. But my dad isn’t alive anymore. She said the Horns was watching her. I don’t...I don’t know what that means. Horns, Horns, Horns.”
Jack had a definite vision of a ghost. He wanted to make a joke about heavy metal, or Satanic rituals, but he was old enough to know not to say stupid shit, especially since he’d de-escalated the situation. Not that Kyle would say anything positive about him. Kyle would probably complain that he’d had to help Annie.
“Does any of that mean anything to you, Ms. Blackburn?” Hugo asked.
“Annie is fine.” Her eyes softened more, turning gentle. “Hugo, I don’t know anything about horns. I did see a woman in the corner one night, oh, about six months ago. We were working late, and she was faint. It was strange. A second later, she was gone. That was it.”
“What did she look like?” Hugo asked.
“Big blond hair, lots of hairspray,” Annie replied. “Old-fashioned dress and some very blue eye makeup. But again, it was indistinct. Could that be her?”
Hugo’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t...I don’t know.”
Jack was on edge, waiting for that hand to come out of his pocket, and when it did, he cocked back a fist to knock Sweaty Hugo into next week.
In the end, he didn’t need to. Hugo held a toy soldier, made of metal, with a little key in his back. You wound the key, and the soldier’s feet marched, and he drummed on a little tin drum. Hugo pushed that into Jack’s hand. “You are a soldier. Here is a soldier. Soldier. Soldier. Soldier.”
Hugo didn’t say goodbye. He just walked off, muttering to himself. He walked past those two goons by the Big Boy Café and then turned right and was gone—probably headed to the King Soopers.
Annie let out a shaky breath. “Gosh, Jack. I hope he’s going to be okay. I mean, I kind of lied.”
Jack laughed. “So you say ‘gosh,’ but you lie to the crazy homeless guy?”
Annie playfully slapped his arm. “Just because I don’t curse doesn’t mean I’m a goody two shoes. It’s just...he wanted me to tell him about the ghost. He was missing his mom. I can relate.”
“Your mom pass?” Jack asked.
She nodded. “What about you?”
Jack shook his head. “No, I still have Moms and her sister. Lost all my brothers and my dad, but still have my mom. I keep her out of trouble, and that’s a full-time job.”
“How many jobs do you have?” she asked.
He shrugged and with his hands held out to the side. “I lost count. I do the security guard thing, but I do a lot of side gigs that pay well, and I sometimes help out at my friend’s bar. And I teach hunter safety classes for Plum Creek County. Seems like it’s four, five if you include my mom and my aunt. They’re fucking crazy. And just because I cuss doesn’t mean I’m not a goody two shoes.”
Annie beamed at him. “Asshole with a heart of gold.”
“Something like that.” Jack checked the Big Boy Café. Those two sketchy guys weren’t there. Had they slipped by him, or had they taken off? It wasn’t feeling right. He looked inside the bank’s glass doors, and everything looked normal. The line was down, and the bank was emptying out. Good. He didn’t want to be hanging out on Friday evening waiting for some grandma to cash a check.
Jack stuck the toy soldier, a little gift from Hugo, into his pants pocket, but it was uncomfortable. He fished it out and just held on to it.
“We should get back in,” Annie said. “But thanks, Jack. I know you and Kyle don’t get along, and some of the other tellers think you’re difficult, but we do appreciate you. And between you and me, we all feel better when you’re around and not Ernie. Not that I want to gossip.”
Jack shrugged. “It’s good to hear someone appreciates me. And Ernie would stop a bullet or two, so if shit goes down, just duck behind him.”
“You’re terrible!” Annie said with a nervous little laugh.
Ernie, another Vigilance Incorporated security guard, needed Friday afternoons off. That was why Jack was there that particular Friday afternoon. Ernie had mentioned some guy who kept coming around, but he didn’t think it would turn into anything. Funny, Ernie started talking about the crazy guy in September, right around the time that Andy, Jack’s last brother, died. Another funeral for the Masterson family.
Jack couldn’t think about that.
He had to focus on what was in front of him. Ernie was an ex-cop who mostly sat on his ass and collected his check. Jack did more, learning about the network security, learning about the vault, learning about the various financial products the bank sold. He helped out when he could because, no, asshole didn’t translate into lazy fuck.
He blinked and realized Annie was still standing there, waiting for him to say more. He glanced at her hand—still no engagement ring—and thought, fuck it. “Annie, I know you’re just getting out of a thing, and you aren’t dating. But I’d like to take you out sometime. Offer is open.”
“No, I can’t.” The words came out harsh.
Jack could shrug them off. Being rejected was part of the game. It would be fine. He had to grin to show that he didn’t feel like crap, even though he did.
She reached out. “No, it’s not you. I’m not ready. That’s what I mean. My heart...” She sucked in a breath. “I got my heart broken, Jack. And I’m not ready yet. He...cheated on me with my best friend. There is a lot of drama there. I’m just not ready.”
“When you are, come and talk to me.”
“I will.” Annie touched his arm. It felt nice.
The two walked back into the bank, and no lie, it was awkward as fuck. Annie hurried forward, and he got to see what he would be missing out on. Her butt shook in all the right ways. Then she was back at her station, Kyle was back in his office, and Jack started across the room.
Saved Annie from Hugo Mundi. Then got shot down. Damn.
Th
e two guys he’d seen before by the Big Boy Café came through the doors—he recognized their clothes but not their faces. They thought they were cute by wearing ski masks as they came storming across the bank lobby five minutes before five. The shotguns weren’t as cute—sawed off for maximum scatter. If they started firing, they didn’t care who they hit.
Both of them glanced first at the security station, where Jack would’ve been if Hugo Mundi hadn’t needed help out the door. Jack knew the two chuckleheads would’ve shot him dead right there.
Only he wasn’t there.
Jack only had a second to make a decision. He’d charge them, try to surprise them, and then take them down.
But he never had the chance.
One of the bank robbers made him. The dickhead lowered his shotgun and pulled the trigger. Jack Masterson’s shitty life flashed before his eyes, and then he died like his five brothers, leaving his mom behind just like they did.
Except he didn’t.
Instead? Time itself died.
Chapter Two
FOR A SECOND, JACK thought he felt the pellets blowing his rib cage out his back. Then he saw the shot hanging in the air. Frozen smoke hung around the weapon’s muzzle. First fucking thing he did was take two steps to the left, out of the line of fire, and draw his gun, but the shotgun blast and the crook that shot it stayed frozen.
And that wasn’t the only strangeness.
Annie was a frozen statue, a look of horror on her face. Kyle was in the doorway, cowering, and while Jack didn’t want to look at the guy’s crotch, there might’ve been a stain on his pants.
Everyone in the bank was a statue. In the far corner, there was some bit of a smudge, but Jack couldn’t make it out.
Jack winced at a slow ache in his head. He sometimes had migraines, and this felt like the tickle of one starting. He felt sweaty, a bit shaky, but all in all, he was handling this fucking weirdness pretty well. He moved through the frozen bodies. An older woman, pretty good-looking, smelled like expensive perfume. He put a hand near her arm, and, yes, he could feel the heat from her body. Okay. He holstered his pistol.
